[atemerev]

I don't understand why this is a problem. We are moving through demographic transition, as the world reaches its carrying capacity for human populations. So, we are safe from overpopulation crisis, from future unemployment crises, etc.

[jphoward]

It's a problem when it happens suddenly because you end up with a 'top heavy' age distribution. The elderly pensioners:young earners ratio explodes and society security/national insurance cannot afford healthcare/pensions etc.

This is compounded by what was (until recently) a steady increase in life expectancy.

The really frustrating aspect of this is pensioners, who have traditionally huge voter turnouts during elections, are unlikely to have their benefits cut, because it would be political suicide for a party. The elderly believe they have "paid in" to their plans and deserve them, but outside of private pensions, this is usually a significant over-simplification. Instead, what will happen is the working young will need to pay for the generous promised benefits that the elderly are receiving, whilst 'paying in' for much lower benefits for themselves.

[scotty79]

This is only disturbing for people who think human work creates the economic value we need. While in reality most of our economic value is created by machines. We don't feel it because it's mostly captured by billionaires so it seems that we still need to work as much as we used to.

So the future with less workers is just a future with poorer billionaires and they don't like that which explains why all the media owned by them are trying to scare us about againg population scenario.

[NalNezumi]

It's considered a problem because the entire system, for most developed nations, implicitly relies on a specific demographic distribution.

Pension system in most world assumed steady supply of productive populace when it was set up. (=assumes certain young / old people ratio).

A lot of asset backed valuation (real estate etc) assumes certain consumption level, demand, and steady grow. So does inflation / investment / wealth management.

Healthcare systems (especially socialized) also have certain expectation on the distribution

If we just equally reduced population in the demographic distribution (same amount of % of men/women young/old) things wouldn't be as much of a problem.

But as it is, most countries would struggle with the transition. That's why it is a "problem" people's talk about; what is the least stressful transition strategy?

[scotty79]

Our systems need revision anyways. Nothing ever happens voluntarily. So we should be kind a glad that there is outside factor that will eventually force us to revise out systems. Because laziest approach to the problem, like letting more immigrants in didn't work out that well.

[sushibowl]

The problem is that a significant part of the current world economic system is dependent on adequate supply of human labor. The declining population phase is especially painful as this will lead to a larger proportion of older people, which cannot supply the same amount of labor yet do consume the same amount of resources.

I don't think the solution should be to prop birth rates back up, necessarily, but we do need to consider how to deal with the economic consequences of this demographic transition, and I don't think any mainstream politician is currently willing to deal with a world that doesn't experience constant population growth.

[atemerev]

Well, incidentally, right now the AI revolution is happening, the problem will be unemployment, not a deficit of human labor

[dukeyukey]

Because a cone-shaped demographic pyramid means:

1. Fewer productive taxpayers to pay for old-age pensions

2. A drop-off in available investment capital as private pensions are converted to bonds and cash

3. Fewer workers for an economy with soaring demand for specific fields e.g. medical

[loxs]

It's not a problem for the universe, only for you in your old age ;)